812 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
UIDOE. PARASITES. THOSE OP PRANCE EXAMINED. 
Of this species our knowledge is still more meager than in the 
case of the other two. Mr. Kirby states that it made its appear, 
ance on the wheat on the same day with the larva parasite, and 
he saw it piercing the outermost chaff with its sting. Though 
he was not able to ascertain the fact positively, he presumes it 
lays its eggs in the larva ot the midge. But as many of its kin¬ 
dred are now known to be parasitic destroyers of other parasitic 
larvae, we are not without suspicions it may prove to be a des- 
troyer of one or the other of the two foregoing species, and thus 
be in reality a friend of the wheat midge intead of an enemy. 
Now that we thus know the parasites which attend the wheat 
midge on the island of Great Britain, let us next inquire what 
insects of this kind are found accompanying it on the continent 
of Europe. For an examination of this subject, the remittance 
of M. Bazin, heretofore mentioned, has placed in my hands mate¬ 
rials which are most important and precious. 
Upon opening the vial containing insects as they were promis¬ 
cuously gathered by the net from the wheat at the time it was in 
bloom in the department of the Yonne in France, in the year 1860, 
and emptying a portion of its contents upon a sheet of white 
papei, what first arrests our notice is the excessive numbers of 
a minute black fly which we everywhere see in the mass, fully 
corroborating M. Bazin’s statement that this fly exists in myriads 
on the wheat in all the fields he examined. Dr. Sichel has ascer¬ 
tained that this fly is the species named Inostemma punctiger by 
Nees d’Esenbeck, one of the first authorities of our day upon the 
minute insects of the Ichneumon tribe. And Dr. Sichel further 
states that according to the figure of Mr. Curtis it is also the 
same species with the /. inserens of the British entomologists. I 
see but one circumstance of so much importance as to excite a 
doubt as to this fly being the inserens. Mounted specimens sent 
me by M. Bazin have the sting or ovipositor of the female beau¬ 
tifully displayed, showing it when thus drawn out, to resemble 
a veiy fine slender hair more than twice as long as the body of 
the insect, and enlarged at its end into a conspicuous flattened 
spear-shaped head, which is black, the hair being rusty yellowish. 
Mr. Kirby, whose figures and description are copied by Mr. Cur¬ 
tis, does not represent the end of the sting as being thus enlarged 
in his species. And other examples from M. Bazin have the sting 
shorter and without this enlargement at its end, these correspond- 
